thoughts about food, craft, and living well

A celebration of garlic

It’s Saturday again and, despite the rain, we made our weekly visit to the Farmer’s Market. We made it back, quite damp and rumpled, with bags filled with organic apples, corn, grapes, roasted peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, eggs, spinach and more.

The rain, unfortunately, meant I decided to leave my camera in the car, so today’s pictures come from what happened next.

On the way home a distinctive sign placed on top of a car caught our attention. One word was enough to draw us in: GARLIC.

Susanville garlic

We pulled over to the side of the street, parked and made our way into a garage set up with tables displaying five varieties of organic garlic. Of course, we had to buy some of each.

Joyce's, Simonetti and Susanville garlic (bottom to top)

Three varieties are pictured below (from left to right) Inchelium Red, Italian Purple and one named for the woman who grew the garlic, Joyce Mills of Mills Organic Farm in Newberg, OR: Joyce’s garlic.

The picture below includes Joyce’s garlic (on the left) and two other varieties: Simonetti and Susanville.

According to Joyce, each variety has a different taste and some last longer in storage than others. We’ll be experimenting with all of them over the next few weeks.